Boards

Jesus, been ages since i started one of these hasn't it? Is it still frowned upon for some people to start work a bit earlier than the unskilled 9-5 London-based office drones and that?

Don't know if i said, but i'm not really into my vulgarball nowadays. Becoming a big fan of the Europa League, though, now Europe's premier (in terms of excitement and balance) inter-country club knockout competition. Anyway...

- More glorious failure for the Bin Dippers, as the only English team who actually went all out to qualify...don't.

If they wouldn't have scored that goal you'd be sat here saying being knocked out was a blessing in disguise, let's be honest. For Liverpoool it was their only chance of keeping the final few months of the season remotely interesting. Spurs are in with a great shout of 4th, and given that, i don't know if last night was hugely important for them.

I purely meant in terms of us fielding our best available side in both games. I'm in two minds - I'd love to win the Europa of course, but it'll be much longer and tougher than we'd be given credit for, whereas CL qualification is there for the taking.

not sure what their keeping was doing sliding in on Sissoko from behind. It was the only mistake he made in either leg and it cost his side the tie.

At the other end I wasn't impressed by Cristaldo's effort of collapsing like a heap every time a Newcastle breezed passed him only to go and have a cheeky dig at Krul that left our keeper (who had an outstanding second half) leaving the stadium on crutches.

Decent performance, looked destined to be a 0-0 until the penalty, can't say I fancy our chances of getting much further than the last 16 right now but it's a big lift for the club heading into a run of winnable Premier League games.

That said, he's been pretty shaky for the last year or so, it's just hard to say whether that's because his mind's already elsewhere, a result of his two leg breaks, or just that he's finally succumbed to the creeping shitness that infects all our defenders.

He's been crap for about three years now. There was one year he was the standout right-back in the league, but that was ages ago. Given, last year he broke his legs a bit, so that might sort of excuse his current form, but he's not been a top player for years.

Having said that, we've said similar about other defenders who have quickly improved when actually trained and disciplined after leaving Arsenal, so maybe we shouldn't completely write him off.

Maybe there's something we don't know, like concerns about the effects of those injuries etc, or Sagna deciding he fancies a last big move, but assuming both parties would quite like him to stay and he's not asking for silly wages I really don't see why we can't go to 2 years and a few grand a week extra for a senior player

It's been said elsewhere about Walcott effectively playing as a second striker a lot of the time, so Sagna is effectively on his own on the right flank and copes remarkably well. Walcott and Jenkinson weren't playing together all that much and I'm not sure how well he'd cope with Walcott's disappearing act.

We were superb. When we get going in that relentless bombardment style we employed against Swansea and Zenit (and City, for a brief period), we're very dangerous and keep teams firmly on the back foot.

Our major weakness is that whenever the opposition break, you shit yourself when you realise the full backs are both playing as attacking wingers and the two centre-halves aren't very good. At this point, I'd be happy with two completely brand new centre-halves for next season, because neither Agger nor Skrtel have performed since signing their deals earlier this year.

It was a shame that Carragher ended his European career on such a low. Good luck to Spurs and Newcastle, I hope they go far in it and that one of them wins it.

A few years back he reckoned his best pal was Kevin Gallen, then a couple of albums before that he started rocking vintage West Ham shirts, and before that saying he used to regularly go and watch United in his teens. Went through a brief phase of liking his boxing as well, apparently.

Typical Arsenal fan high-horsery aside I think the sheer weight of money spent makes it harder to judge his achievements at City, much as the state of Italian football post-Calciopoli makes it trickier to judge his time at Inter, and his record in Europe is a bit of a black mark. All that said, that sort of spending brings its own problems, he's handled a lot of nonsense much better than vastly more experienced managers might have and he's obviously a brilliant man manager. Also he looks like Disney prince, which can only be a good thing.